


fog on a mirror

by Haberdasher



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Archivist Jonathan Sims, Background Sasha James/Tim Stoker, Canonical Character Death, Character Turned Into a Ghost, Gen, Ghost Sasha James, Ghosts, Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist With a Cane, Minor Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, POV Sasha James, Tape Recorder Sasha (Adjacent)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-12
Updated: 2020-06-12
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:56:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24689506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Haberdasher/pseuds/Haberdasher
Summary: Sasha begins to unravel, but an unexpected meeting provides some relief. Continuation of breath in a graveyard.
Relationships: Minor or Background Relationship(s), Sasha James & Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist & Original Character(s)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 41





	fog on a mirror

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [breath in a graveyard](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24595216) by [soundthebells (kosy)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kosy/pseuds/soundthebells). 



Sasha had known that Tim was her anchor for a while now. Even before he knew it was her, knew that they’d been close well before she became little more than a voice on a tape recorder, they had talked, long hours spent together, their voices intermingling when their bodies no longer could. He had cared about her even when he hadn’t known her name. Even her death hadn’t been enough to force them apart for good.

 _His_ death, on the other hand...

Some part of Sasha had hoped that he would turn up there in the Institute, stuck here like she was. Not that it was a fate she’d wish upon him, or upon anyone, really, but... it would be nice to have the company, at least. It seemed, though, that if Tim was haunting anywhere it would be that damn wax museum in Great Yarmouth, far from her domain, far from her watchful eye.

Sasha wasn’t all that surprised to find that when Tim was gone, she began to drift away, unanchored as she was.

Martin tried, bless him. Martin really tried to be there for her when nobody else was. But there was only so much he could do to help. She wasn’t the only one who was suffering because of the aftermath of that explosion, after all. She wasn’t the only one who’d lost her anchor.

Maybe it would be different if Melanie or Basira knew about her, but while Martin could conceivably had told them about her, given Sasha others who could both hear her and recognize what it was they heard, he never offered and she never asked. It was probably for the best, really. Neither of them seemed like they’d take the idea that somebody they didn’t know had been watching them all this time without their knowledge or permission terribly well.

Maybe it would be different, too, if Sasha could say anything useful, pass along the information she’d learned along the way, but that old static still rose up when she tried to explain about the Institute, about Elias, about anything of any real importance. All she could offer was a conversation partner, and as it was, it sounded like Martin talked to a ghost often enough when he visited Jon, though Sasha at least could talk back. Martin was probably growing tired of having only ghosts to speak with, anyway.

As it was, Martin’s chats with the tape recorder grew less and less frequent as days turned to weeks turned to months until they ended entirely. Sasha hadn’t known their last conversation would be exactly that when it happened, but then Peter Lukas...

Well. Martin was still technically in the Institute, but once Peter Lukas got a hold of him, he might as well have been gone, too.

All of them were gone, then, and Sasha began to fade as the aching certainty of it set in.

She’d pass by someone she knew and not remember their name, or how she knew them, or any of the little things she’d gleaned about their life in her time spent as the Institute’s resident ghost. She’d forget the lyrics to the songs she made herself keep singing despite everything, would mix up tunes and not realize that they didn’t go together until she was through. She’d see something that triggered a memory of her life before her death but the details would be hazy, like she was trying to see them through a thick pane of glass, or through dense fog.

She knew that this place was hers, that the people in it were hers, that she was here to watch and listen and not to act, but little by little, the rest started to fall by the wayside.

It was... some months later, though she couldn’t have given a date, or even a number of months that had passed, when she saw him, a thin, dark man with a cane slowly but steadily making his way down the stairs into the Archives.

A lightbulb went off in her head as the man turned the lights of the Archives on--it was night, now, and the residents of the Institute had already long since left--and she knew he wasn’t supposed to be here, though details beyond that initially eluded her.

Her first thoughts were that he was an intruder, like that man with far too many limbs who had attacked the Institute months ago, the sight of the Archives staff fending him off both fascinating and horrifying to her uninvolved eyes. But no, he didn’t look like an intruder, thin and weak as he was, and he clearly knew exactly where he was going as he wandered into an office that had been vacant for quite a while now and sat down within it, sighing slightly as he sank into the chair.

Then she remembered, distantly, that he had died. That it had all gone wrong--that was the phrasing that Martin had used, then, that it had all gone wrong--and he had _died_. He wasn’t the one who had been her anchor, but they had died side by side, fighting the same fight. Except that he was here now.

He was here now, and he wasn’t a ghost like her. He’d turned the lights on, after all, was able to take his jacket off and adjust the chair and turn on the computer in front of him. He had died, and yet he was physically present in a way she could only dream of, in a way she had only been in those distant, foggy memories of hers. A zombie, perhaps, but not a ghost.

And as she stood there and watched this strange visitor to the Archives rifle through dusty files, after a moment, he looked up and watched her right back.

“...Sasha?”

It took her a moment to realize that that was her name, and another moment to think to speak up, and another silent moment to remember that speaking didn’t work like that for her, not now, not anymore.

If the man noticed her silent, slow processing, though, he didn’t show it, shaking his head--his hair was long and shaggy, black and silver strands clinging to his face after every movement--and smiling weakly before digging through his bag for...

Ah. For a tape recorder. Which he set on the desk, looking her in the eyes as he pressed the play button.

“Sorry, is that better?”

Her breathing came through the tape recorder loud and clear. How long had it been since she’d heard the sound of her own breath?

“For a certain definition of better, I suppose.” The words came out of her almost as smoothly and naturally as her breaths did.

“Right. Right, that makes sense.” He laughed, soft and sharp, with no humor in the sound.

“Jon?” It had taken her longer than it should have to remember that name. They had been close, once. Too much had changed, but perhaps that part didn’t need to. “Jon, what happened? Martin said you were dead.”

Granted, Sasha knew that that wasn’t entirely true, given that hospitals generally weren’t in the business of taking care of dead people, but while Martin had touched on Jon’s condition in their chats back when they’d had them, he never outright explained what state Jon was in now; Sasha had gotten the feeling that it was something of a sensitive subject, and she hadn’t pushed. She knew that Jon had been in the hospital, that he was still technically considered dead, and that he wasn’t expected to recover, but that wasn’t enough to put together the full story. She’d assumed brain death, when she’d assumed anything at all, but that didn’t exactly match up with current evidence.

“Not quite.” Jon broke eye contact with Sasha, looking down at his cane, which he began to fidget with absentmindedly. “It’s... it’s a long story.”

Sasha shrugged. “I’ve got nothing but time.”

“Do you?” Jon stared back up at Sasha. “You look... fuzzy. Are you alright, Sasha?”

She could tell he was trying to change the subject, but she couldn’t entirely blame him, either. Maybe he wasn’t ready to talk about his near-death experience, or whatever, yet. That was fair enough.

Besides, he had a point.

Sasha laughed, her laughter soft and shaky and slightly tinged with static as it rang out from the tape recorder. “I do feel a little... _fuzzy_ , actually.”

“Probably not a great sign, that.”

Sasha shook her head, her laughter a little louder this time, but still shaky and filled with static. “No, probably not.”

“Do you want to... to talk about it?” Jon went back to fidgeting with his cane, though he kept his gaze locked on Sasha, the gleam in his eyes downright eerie in the dim archival lighting. “You know, I never did get a statement from you, even though I thought that’s what you were here for at first... maybe that would help, getting to tell your story, having someone hear you out.”

Sasha thought about it for a moment. On the one hand, she suspected Jon had more reasons than he was sharing for wanting to hear her story, and she could tell he was still trying to get out of explaining what had happened to him. On the other hand, he looked about as bad as she felt, and... and maybe it _would_ be good for her, being able to explain it all to somebody who’d be glad to listen.

And she wasn’t the only one without an anchor here, was she?

“I’ll tell you my story if you tell me yours afterwards.” Jon opened his mouth to speak, and she held up one hand to stop him. “Doesn’t have to be right now, right away. But I want to hear it one of these days. When you’re ready.”

“I...” Jon let out a long, slow breath. “Alright, fair enough. We have a deal, then.”

“And the tape recorder’s already running, of course.”

“Of course.” Jon laughed a little, and Sasha noticed that his voice sounded slightly hoarse as he did, just before he cleared his throat. “Statement of Sasha James, regarding...”

“...Her death and subsequent existence.” Sasha finished, trying not to notice how Jon’s eyes lit up as he switched into statement mode.

Jon nodded silently before continuing with his speech. “Taken direct from subject, 16th of February, 2018. Recording by Jonathan Sims, the Archivist.”

That bit was new, and it stuck out clearly enough in Sasha’s mind; Sasha had heard him record statements more times than she could count, now, and it was always always _always_ “Jonathan Sims, head archivist of the Magnus Institute, London”. A few times she’d spoken the words along with him, when she’d known that she wouldn’t be heard, getting the same rhythm that he always used down after a couple practices. The fact that he was calling himself just “the Archivist,” now, the term she’d only ever heard used by those who were in too deep and saw people as roles more than as individuals... well, it wasn’t a _great_ sign.

But then, neither was the fact that Sasha was apparently fuzzy to Jon’s eyes, albeit not to her own, or the fact that the static crept up on her sometimes even when she was saying nothing of consequence.

They were both drifting, perhaps. They both needed an anchor.

Sasha forced herself to summon up a smile, weak but present just the same, and Jon smiled back at her, and though he looked like hell and his eyes gleamed unnaturally as they stared up at her, in that moment, everything seemed almost okay.

“Statement begins.”

**Author's Note:**

> If you liked this, consider following me on tumblr at [haberdashing](https://haberdashing.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
